


rebirth parade

by safome



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, ex-fine chiaki, feel free to squint at the pairing, this kind of reads like chiaki/leo/izumi too tbh how did THAT happen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2018-08-19 19:03:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8221574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/safome/pseuds/safome
Summary: They've both changed; they've seen each other through several lives, packed into one, and still they refuse to be broken.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is actually so old and i don't remember how it came about but all i remember is ex-fine chiaki and thinking that chiaki and leo would be a great pairing because LEADERS WHO TRY REALLY HARD ALL RIGHTTTTT
> 
> don't judge me for my rare pair, all right. also the timeline for this is a mess because enstars won't work with me so just excuse that for me.

** — ♞ — **

They were a bit like ships at sea.

Epaulets swung, footsteps alternated in the halls, gazes exchanged from the corners of eyes that never met directly. He was harder to miss, hair bright and eyes always searching elsewhere, trouble or otherwise from the looks of it... or maybe for something more in the contrast, the other one with the more muted expression, the one with something bubbling under the surface. 

Or at least you'd think there _had_ to be something more, from the way Tsukinaga Leo always mulled, for just a moment, on him. It stood out. It stood out, an action from the one that never mulled on much of anything—he broke through, made breakthroughs, just _broke_ in general. He wrote and wrote and fought and fought but never really explained, his banner held high.

Yet, it was always there. The half-second where he would stop, green held and holding him in place. It was small, but he remembered; perhaps because Tsukinaga Leo very rarely mulled, or perhaps because there was something more hidden in the silent question he wasn't sure Leo was asking.

Distaste?

Perhaps Tsukinaga Leo hated him, Morisawa Chiaki. 

He never asked.

He wasn't in a position to ask. 

And would Leo answer a question like that regardless?

** — ☆ — **

The answer was no.

When there were no uniforms, just the light trickling in through the windows and a large circle of sheets on the floor— 

(notes this way and that, rests this way and that, Leo's mind visually scattered everywhere in the room) 

—it was almost as if Leo never stared at all. The hypnotic stupor that the Knights Leader found himself in while in the midst of his inspirational bursts was not a fact unknown to most anyone in their world, but Chiaki had wandered into it personally by accident. 

The door was open. The windows, too. A breeze had picked up some pieces and flung them into the hallway; Chiaki had been fortunate enough to catch them. Now he stood in the doorway, now he was the one staring, as Leo slowly looked up at him with his brow furrowed and his fingers stained with ink. In his eyes: no distaste, no aggressive questions, no something mores. Just a kind of hesitation and curiosity. 

The silence was a little bit suffocating, actually. This wasn't like the stares in the hallways. In the novelty, Chiaki found his voice enough to say:

"Tsukinaga—"

With his hand slightly raised, bringing any attention to the papers between his fingers. Leo's gaze went there momentarily, before something like a grin spread through his face, and he leaned forward with his hands outstretched. That was the silent command to urge Chiaki forward, to deposit those sheets of papers in the blackened hands of the one who wrote them. Here, he wasn't sure it was possible to think this was the same person who regarded him in public with something he could not and would not name; rather, he was just a classmate with a penchant for withdrawing into moments of inexplicability, and writing on the desks.

There was some there, actually... Writing, that was—notes curling inward in an illegible spiral. Chiaki kept his eyes on the center as Leo spoke, his tone light while he flipped through his rediscovered compositions.

"Ah, thanks! ♪ I was wondering where these went... This part's pretty important, you know— and if you don't have it... Well, there's no point! 'To Here', it'd tell you, but woah! It's gone! What're you supposed to do!"

"They were outside," Chiaki started weakly, finding an explanation fitting in a moment where things flew over his head. He was good at adapting, even if he wasn't quite good at anything else. "The window..."

"Right, right, the breeze," Leo muttered in response, his eyes trailing upwards to Chiaki, though there was no way for him to know that's where he was looking. His focus was still on the elegant mess on the top of the table and, if not there, he reconvened on the sheets on the floor that he could see. The only thing cutting through Chiaki's curiosity and the silence settling in the room again was the pensive hum that Leo offered while staring—thinking and thinking. 

The exchange may have been considered a rude one, but there was never any trouble to be had from one who didn't look for it, and not any offence to be had from someone who didn't care enough to be offended. Whether Chiaki's eyes were on him or not while they spoke, it wasn't of much consequence. That was the impression he got. 

There was more: the sound of strokes, pencil against paper against floor, and feet against floor as Chiaki found himself pulled closer to the music so shamelessly sprawled on the surface of furniture.

It took two minutes before that distracted silence broke.

"You thinking about the work of a genius, Red?" was the next thing said, and that shimmered through the notes. Admittedly, that was a truth that didn't need to be said — most everyone understood that Leo's star quality wasn't in being understandable or astoundingly charismatic on the stage (though he was a sharp sword there in his own right), but his weapons were the papers he poured over. Any curiosity over an ability unique to Leo was excusable, expected almost, though that wasn't enough to obtain any kind of peek of that talent outside of a stage lit up by lights.

With that in mind, Chiaki nodded. Even the question of the name Leo chose to refer to him to died on his lips.

And Leo collected sheets, bunched them up, said: "This part first, and then… this one, here, and woah! I don’t remember this one being so poor? Okay, nah, nevermind about this one, this one instead—” as paper and paper and more paper was thrown in Chiaki’s direction. He struggled to keep it all in place, to follow the unrestrained current that he was shoved into, as Leo gave him no time to breathe. 

That was another thing he discovered very quickly. Leo never gave anyone time to breathe.

But that he was being pulled into drowning was perhaps enough to hope that he wasn’t a target of hatred from whatever it was this person could be defined as.

** — ♞ — **

When he thought about it, that meeting had no more substance than their usual shoulder-to-shoulders in the hall, at least not anything to be considered incredibly _different_ , but somehow he thought it would invoke a shift in their dynamic.

Because when Leo outlined and hummed the music, he listened and was allowed to listen, anticipating whatever in-the-moment revision the composer would make, even before he was finished presenting the original. 

Because Leo said _come back whenever, okay_?

When Chiaki, his lapel decorated gold, his shoulders adorned in finery, found his courage and rose his hand in greeting when he saw Leo during one of the _usuals_ , he really thought it would be different.

It wasn't. 

There was the stare, the unasked question. 

Like the music, it was a revision of Leo's opinion, before Chiaki even truly knew what that opinion was.

** — ☆ — **

It took a while before he found himself back. Inquisitiveness and shreds of bravado collected and saved up like change; when it overflowed, he had to spend it. So, he searched. First, the initial room, with an open door and the open window and the mess of sheets. There was nothing. Even the table that was previously decorated with the second verse of "A First Meeting" (a title Leo had made up on the spot when Chiaki finally asked what the entire thing he wrote was _called_ ; Chiaki, again, hadn't bothered to say that this wasn't the first time they met) was wiped clean.

The only thought he spared that empty room was a hope that Leo had copied down whatever it was that was scattered onto the furniture, before he moved on.

His slow journey seemed casual, betraying his building _something_ as he peeked into classroom after classroom after classroom. An oddity, given Chiaki was at constant odds between what he treasured and what he felt pulled to (a fact he was unaware of, until later)... or not, given he wasn't supposed to be finding much of anything in a song that wasn't his.

Yet here he was. It was the final step, and he lingered in front of the first place he should have logically looked. He was poised to walk away, but he didn't. A deep breath. A knock. Last: the door to their practice room, which he opened with no small amount of hesitation.

"Ah. It's a mess," Eichi would have said, with very little surprise and no amount of subtlety towards his displeasure. Maybe a hint of amusement to tear through it all.

Because what was inside was truly a _mess_.

What awaited Chiaki on the other side was the King and one of his Knights, one annoyed and the other vibrant. There were no surprises to be had there, nor in the papers and scrawl that circled them, a picture of total comfort in chaos. But, consider the following: Leo, who was on the floor, had his clothes in a state that could only be called "a rumpled disaster", buttons half-done, half-not, and Izumi leaned above him with his hands on his upper arm. Only one stiffened when both looked up, the direction of their gazes directed towards the now-open door, where the somewhat awkward Chiaki felt like he had opened the door to something he didn't, and maybe didn't want to, understand.

Truly, a mess.

And then Leo turned to look at Izumi, said: "Sena, I thought you locked the door," and made it worse.

Izumi inhaled a yell, near dropped Leo's arm, as if scalded, and shoved him into the dust.

** — ♞ — **

Chiaki got the background from a somewhat exasperated and annoyed Izumi when he was finished pummelling his leader, the laughter and humming of a now-loved-by-dust Leo as background accents. The idiot here was rolling in the dirt, again, his uniform's ruined, cleaning that is a pain in the ass, don't get the wrong idea, locked in with _haha_ s and is that what you thought, that's really cliché, don't make assumptions like that, okay?

"It's your damn fault if that's the conclusion people come to. Learn to read the mood before you ask about locked doors," Izumi all but hissed, before his eyes trailed back to Chiaki. He began to wonder if silently asking questions in their gazes was a thing that all of Knights did, except, when Izumi voiced: "Anyway. What does fine's Aki-kun want with us, huh?" he knew it wasn't the same.

"That's not right right now," Leo interjected cryptically; he offered no explanations when Chiaki gave him a puzzled look and Izumi lifted a brow. 

He thought for a moment it was a matter of timing, so he considered excusing himself, but instead what came out was—

"I was told I could come back."

A pull on Leo's uniform, blushed with dirt, and another displeased pitch adorning the words, "What the hell are you doing," made it quite clear that their little meeting and that offer hadn't been a well-known fact until now.

"Sharing," Leo said.

Sharing what?

He wasn't sure what he was being given, wouldn't be sure until later on, when it was all gone, when the offer of "come back whenever" was empty and drained and there was a sense of never being given anything else, never being _for_ given. Right now, he wasn't sure what was being given, but Chiaki partook anyway.

** — ☆ — **

"It's seriously unfitting if you spend all this time here. You know that's frankly a little suspicious, right?"

Chiaki looked up. At the moment there were only two in the practice room, Chiaki and Izumi, the former not doing much of anything and the latter searching for _something_ in that 'not much of anything', before that hint of uncharacteristic... protectiveness? flared up. If there was one thing Chiaki had gotten better at while here, it was asking silent questions—the way he tilted his head somewhat made it obvious he wanted an elaboration.

All he got was a huff, and a sharp statement of: "You're fine."

There was an unvoiced "oh" that settled into Chiaki's chest, like that had somehow escaped his attention. "And we're classmates," he offered in response. It was a far cry from his normally meek responses, but somehow that was what came first. It sparked.

It annoyed.

Izumi's lips pressed together. "Cut that out. I'm asking you what you want."

In other words: why. 

And _that_ baffled, as Chiaki floundered with what should have otherwise been a simple question. It occurred to him then that there hadn't been much questioning behind his actions; just an undercurrent that pulled him to whatever this was to him. Leo, the source, never bothered to ask... neither did he. But it was here now: the questioning, the sharp bits of hesitation that bloomed in his chest, the implications of something he was trying to think of as "okay". 

Because like Izumi said, he was fine's Chiaki Morisawa, wasn't he?

And yet he admitted, so honestly, "I don't know."

It made Izumi pause. He leaned back in his chair, looking up at the ceiling and every bit as tired as Chiaki suddenly seemed to be.

"I get it now," Izumi muttered. In a burst of mimicry, a mirror of his King, the puzzle lined up and he didn't explain.

When Leo finally decided to make his damn presence known in the room he should have been in ages ago, making excuses of _inspiration_ and showcasing the physical proof of it all, they slipped back into the normalcy of their odd arrangement easily enough. However, it would be a lie to say that the silent echo of Izumi's question hadn't remained in Chiaki's mind, reverberating and unsettling what was otherwise thought to be stable satisfaction.

This was the moment of realization, his sudden acute awareness of one single fact.

The fact that he was pulling against something he wasn't even aware he was fighting.

** — ♞ — **

A recap of Chiaki Morisawa's past realizations: one, Tsukinaga did indeed make good music, but it was far more fervent when off-stage; two, Sena was much softer than he appeared to act, and the well-being of his King was actually something very much on his mind, which lead to realization three: Chiaki had no idea what he wanted.

Four came shortly afterward. On a day that ended with Leo Tsukinaga kneeling and shattered, Chiaki realized that _anyone_ could fall.

They were a bit like ships at sea, you see.

One sunk.

** — ☆ — **

It was a fair assumption to make. Leo would come back different, but he would come back, the loss pinned on his shirt like a stain, a reminder, but he would come back. When Chiaki wandered into the Knights practice room at that time, that was what he expected to see, and no one could blame him for the thought.

Of course, the other times he'd come following those events the room was empty, but that fact would surely change. 

And it had. 

For now, there was Izumi, seated in the chair that Leo normally sat in when he wasn't making himself a mess on the floor. The expression on his face was a somber reminder of a fact that had occurred to him, _anyone could fall_ , and the stack of papers in front of him one of days that were, most likely, never coming back.

No one had seen Leo for a while, yet surely he thought if anyone was going to continue to hope alongside him, it would be Izumi.

"What," that last dreamer began, a sharpness in his voice that was both unfamiliar and not, before it drew away into apathy. "If you're looking for that idiot, he's not here. People asking me where he is... that's getting really annoying. What am I, his keeper?"

And Chiaki wasn't certain how to respond to that, because his own badge of identification was a fact he could not avoid in Izumi's presence now. He was fine's Chiaki Morisawa, a part of the army that had torn down Izumi's King, ripped the song that Leo had told Chiaki he could listen to at anytime in two.

"Actually," Izumi continued, filling in the stunned silence by himself. "Since you're here, that saves me the trouble. Do me a favor and take this—" a gesture of his head towards the stack of sheets on the table, "—away. It's not mine. I have enough of this..."

He stopped, as if the syllables lodged themselves in his throat, but he forced the words out with no apparent difficulty outside of that first hurdle. 

"... I just don't need it, and I'm sick of cleaning up messes."

With an invitation to take a closer look at the pages, Chiaki realized that the name adorning the top of the stack was "A First Meeting"—a fact which ran through him like a sword to his chest. Whether this was Izumi's own way of attack, an act of revenge, he couldn't know, but the fact is that it was one intentionally or not. The melody played in his mind without his even reading the notes, the spiral noted on the top of a desk now a slow descent into a sharp spike: guilt, which spread across his chest like wildfire. That it was burning must've been a fact that reflected in his face, for Izumi's voice cut in as he remained stunned into silence, choked slowly by the ghost of Leo's promise.

"In the end he didn't lose to _you_ , so don't get the wrong idea." And it was almost reassuring if not for the way he said it as a cold _fact_. 

"I'm sorry," Chiaki finally managed, and he meant it.

"It was his own fault. Just hurry up and take it, and when you're done get out. There's nothing here for you, Morisawa."

He did. He took the papers and the memories and the guilt, and he left. He hadn't said that there was nothing for him _there_ , either, because that was never his place to spread his roots to. 

But, he got what Leo was sharing for him now. 

That was... a taste of the other side. 

That was gone now. Gone with Izumi ever calling him "Aki-kun", gone with Leo humming in the sun, in a room where a hurricane of inspiration hit. It was up to him to create his own place, to rebuild from what was beginning to be... no, what had always been, a cracked foundation.

Gone with fine's Chiaki Morisawa. 

He fell, too. 

But unlike Leo, he stood again.

** — ☆ — **

It was regretful, having to turn away, betray, after all he'd done, but— he had to. When he turned in the shimmering epaulets of fine for the callousing struggles of Ryuseitai, the necessity and transparency of his decision solidified its _righteousness_ , for it seemed that Eichi wasn't surprised at all.

This was his answer. 

Ryusei Red. 

_Red_ , Leo had called him, and perhaps he always knew.

It wasn't in memory of a King, or all because of a King, but in the end, Chiaki Morisawa became a hero.

** — ☆ — **

Later in the year, he would find the courage to speak to Izumi again, to visit the practice room with the jacket of his new self worn proudly. In that visit he was regarded him with something less resembling suspicion and apathy, but appraisal. Izumi was only trying to determine what Chiaki was now.

"Sena," he proclaimed, the proudest he'd sounded since they'd met yet still not as energetically as he _could've_ announced himself; first, it was a question of whether or not he was stepping onto territory where he was still unwelcome. At the same time, Izumi concluded his assessment with ' _loudmouth_ '. Loudmouth, but nothing more.

Not _traitor_. Not _fine_. 

"What're you coming in here and yelling for?"

"I know what I was looking for," Chiaki smiled, careful but brilliant, and he took that as silent acceptance. "And I know now what Tsukinaga was attempting to show me, as well. It just seemed pretty unheroic for me to not show my gratitude. So! It's late, but I wanted to say... Thank you."

That was what he offered, a hand fisted over his chest, and Izumi was stunned into silence. There was no mention of how Chiaki believed Tsukinaga would come back, nor of the fact that he was still, to this day, sorry that Izumi was forced to wear a mantle that he adorned out of _necessity_ , though with the same love that Chiaki found in his, or the same love that he was sure Leo had worn his with, as well. There were no mentions of any of that. 

Everybody could fall. Chiaki, now, was merely determined to be the one that propped those people up. Especially those scattered stars of his past, fragments of fine's Chiaki Morisawa, who he said goodbye to but did not forget.

"Ryuseitai stands with Knights!" 

"Please shut up," Izumi said, hiding a scowl behind a hand. "Don't offer me help from an incomplete unit, okay?"

No one said that Izumi's own unit was also incomplete. One day Ryuseitai would be complete, and Tsukinaga would return so that Knights could be complete too. 

Ryuseitai stood with Knights.

Chiaki stood with Izumi, living and living and struggling.

** — ♞ — **

And, perhaps as a reward, Chiaki's righteousness answered his hope.

Leo returned a few months afterwards, appearing just as suddenly as he disappeared. However, where one would call his death a whimpering whistle, a whisper in the wind, his return was a silent, yet loud, challenge. Again, in his theatrics, there was a silent question: a King's question of the necessity and worth of his return, and a guilt that he wore like a cape. Chiaki knew, because he'd had his own time as a leader now, had his own guilt to come to terms with. Chiaki wore his own scars like medals, and he had his own inexplicable whims that he went along with, unexplained.

He felt as if, unlike before, he could come to understand Leo better now.

Which was why when he left so suddenly after one of Ryuseitai's practices following Leo's return and his second great loss, no one was really surprised. 

"He'll be 'back'," Kanata said, with a genuine smile. "Because 'this' is where Chiaki 'grew'. He just 'wants' someone to 'know'."

No one was really _surprised_ , but no one except Kanata _understood_ , either.

They let it go.

Chiaki ran, but not "away".

** — ☆ — **

In the time since Leo had ceased to come to school, Chiaki had worn the uniform of his unit dozens of times, but never in his presence. In the past, it was an act that seemed inappropriate; not for the fact that Leo only seemed to scorn him when he wore it, but it was _unfitting_ , a sign of decorum and a mask in the face of what was otherwise a room of transparency.

Music does not lie, after all.

Here, now, he wore Ryusei Red with pride: as he opened the door to the room with no amount of hesitation, though of course he knocked. Inside it was a mess, as he expected, sheets scattered this way and that and Leo in the middle of it all, looking different but the same. Dazed, focused in the rhythms of his song even when Chiaki announced his entrance with a happy: "It looks like you really made your comeback, huh, Tsukinaga? As I thought!"

It was as if he had walked into the past, right down to Leo's distracted scrawl. The thought made his expression soften into something resembling nostalgic fondness, before he made his way to where Leo crouched and mirrored his position.

"Welcome back," he continued, as did the lack of acknowledgement, until green eyes tore from their focus on the pages in front of him. Leo leaned back comically then, surprise reflected in his eyes and edging his tone, an exaggerated movement that hid whatever it was he could've truly felt at that moment.

"Hey! Where'd you come from?! You must have some kind of abnormal ability to sneak beside me so easily, huh?!" 

And Chiaki laughed. _Subtlety_ was not his strong suit, and certainly anyone would find the concept of him sneaking up to anyone ridiculous. "I announced my presence previously, actually. But I'm sorry for sneaking up on you anyway!"

Leo truly had returned. Leo had returned, and now, with that surprise melted away from his face, he looked him in the eyes, asking that same silent question he always had in the past. Except now Chiaki understood. _Who are you_ , he was saying. 

And he finally voiced it. 

"Mm'kay," he said, something like satisfaction lining his words. "And? Who are you with the superpowers?" 

Finally, Chiaki was able to say it. He just wanted 'someone' to know—

"Ryuseitai's Ryusei Red! Chiaki Morisawa," and, because he truly hadn't met him, he went on: "Nice to meet you, Tsukinaga."

It was what Leo said next that surprised him. He was inexplicable, and the rumours said he was even more so now—an enigma, weighed down by half a year's disappearance, which he would not explain. He had come back, but in a way he hadn't, was the only way people could describe it.

Yet there was Tsukinaga from the past, speaking to him, where there were no uniforms and only the light trickling in through the open windows, and he said, "Yeah. I was waiting, you know?"

With the shimmer of him there, temporarily, Chiaki had one other thing to let out. 

"I'm sorry," which hung in the air like a star, until it fell.

It was only a moment that Leo looked at him, until his brow furrowed in confusion. "Whaat? For... Oh, for sneaking up on me? Weird thing to fixate on, ahaha! Look, don't worry about it."

It was okay. They'd both changed, and hurt, but it was okay. 

Nice to meet you.

** — ☆ — **

With Leo's loosely labelled "permanent" presence back at school and Chiaki's new understanding of where exactly he was pulled to, they'd taken to spending more time together. In a way, it was something of a reprieve; neither of them were under each other's care, yet they understood, quite well, where the scars lay. They were different, but the same. That was why, during one of those meetings, as a result of Chiaki collecting his courage like change (it came with much more frequency now, and in bigger bursts—something he always reminded himself of), there was a gift for Leo when it overflowed (though it was one he prepared beforehand, with help from Izumi. Somewhat reluctant help).

"A present," he announced, shaking just the slightest. In excitement? Trepidation? "From a leader to a leader, Tsukinaga. A token of my gratitude!"

From Chiaki's slightly quivering hands Leo took a small stack of papers, held together by a large red paperclip. He didn't need to be a composer to see what was being given to him: a composition, the staffs messily written and the notes with uneven lines, some taller than others. He followed the music with little effort, partly because he was so used to reading music, partly because he was a genius, after all, and partly because—

"This is seriously simplistic, Red!"

—It was, he admitted that. He nodded sheepishly. "It was a first. Like most everyone else, I think I'm more used to performing music than writing it?"

"Don't explain it! The secret behind simplicity like this is what gives it its complexity, you know...? Leave that kind of wonder unanswered!" Where some would find that almost insulting, the way Leo hummed the tune made Chiaki realize that he truly enjoyed it. "Yeah, really, I love it! And I love thinking about how long this probably took you, wahahaha!"

"In other words, you like thinking about me struggling? Is this where Sena gets his villain talk from, Tsukinaga?"

"Nope, Sena's just like that. I'm just saying... watching you try is really great. All that hero talk and struggling and the blisters fits your eyes a lot more."

It was a sea of honesty, Leo's own silent thank you for the gift, for joining those thinking of him even when he had run away in cowardice. In return, Chiaki said with his own honesty, unabashed: "It's funny looking back, but also concerning...? I thought you hated me back then!"

"If I did, I definitely would've told you. Besides, the only kinds of Kings that hates heroes are evil ones? Stop making us the villains, will you!"

And it was there, beside a composition that came from Chiaki's heart, awaiting the return of Leo, that they laughed and laughed and laughed; amidst shaky lines and uneven staffs and struggling and dying and living again, they'd come undone and come together, to a point where they both understood. 

At the top of a stack of papers lay Chiaki's message of hope, which he hoped would reach Leo, and it had.

"A Return".

** — ♞ — **

( "So, Tsukinaga, you think I'm a hero?"

"Yeah? That's always what you guys're yelling about, right...? Ah, don't tell me— I totally lost in the middle of everything again?!"

"No, you're right! It's just, you're a king, and I'm a hero... The hero gets to ask something from the king at the end of the story, doesn't he?" 

"I guess? That long of a lead-in... What kind of suspicious thing are you asking for, huh?"

"Here!" he said, and leaned in. Nevermind that the hero always asked for the princess, here he was asking for the king; the one who told him come back whenever.

He did. They both did. )

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading my nonsense oh my god.


End file.
